Death threats have been left for youngsters at a junior school in a echo of an EastEnders plot.
Threatening letters to students, worded similarly to those in the TV soap opera's "poison pen" storyline, were left around Buttsbury Junior School, Billericay.
In the soap opera, viewers were left to speculate about who was responsible for the vitriolic letters. Eventually schoolboy character Steven Beale was revealed as the culprit.
Four weeks later, similar notes started appearing at the school and headteacher Collier Vaughan contacted police.
The school "death threats", some left for individual pupils named in the letters, and others aimed at unspecific pupils, ended before the culprit could be caught.
Mr Vaughan sent a letter to parents to make to make them aware of what he described as "offensive notes".
He said: "There was clearly an element of copycat. There was some similarity in the wording. "We sent letters to the parents and impressed upon students that it was inappropriate and unsettling."
Published Thursday, January 9, 2003
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